What Is It You Choose Today?

After a tough CrossFit workout Saturday with CrossFit Low Oxygen, I so needed a yoga session yesterday.  Plus I'm super stressed with a lot to do and not enjoy time.  Let's just say the tension in my neck is well a pain in the neck!  The 2pm class at Core Power Yoga Highlands location is a CorePower 1.  It's in a warm room and a little slower than the CorePower 2.  I enjoy it because it is a great chance for me to really focus on form and connecting moves to breath.

As today's class started, the instructor Cara said "What is it you choose today?"  Here we go I thought, that's my keyed in phrase of the class.  Then she said if you choose compassion for yourself at in point in class, feel free to go into Child's Pose.  That would be the first pose starting with a "C" that would stand out to me in class.

Starting the class in Child's Pose, gave me a moment to let it all go and realize I was right where I needed to be.  Spiritually, emotionally, physically, and stress level wise I needed to be in that class.

Child's Pose
Photo courtesy Core Power Yoga

The next "C" pose was Crow.  This is a tough one and extremely challenging for me.  Today was the first time since I started going to Core Power Yoga at least once a week since early May that I could hold the pose.  It wasn't for long but I got it.  Everything just clicked for me and I challenged myself to get Crow Pose.

Crow Pose
Photo courtesy Core Power Yoga

The third "C" pose was Camel.  I can actually do this pose, but because it opens up your heart, I'm often flooded with emotions and sometimes a little dizzy coming out of this pose.  But the clarity that suddenly replaces that overwhelming emotional floodgate is simply cool to me.

Camel Pose
Photo courtesy VeganBodyBuilding.com

So what did I choose today?  I chose compassion, challenge and clarity all wrapped up in a 60 minute yoga class.

What If Your Someday Is Now

What if your someday is now?  You're probably wondering what does that have to do with fitness.  Well, a lot for me today.

I took my fifth yoga class in 5 days at CorePower Yoga.  My friend Heather met me at the Highlands location to take CorePower Yoga 2 - Heated Power Yoga.  Here's the description of the class from CorePower Yoga website:  "Ready to sweat? CorePower Yoga 2 (C2) is a rigorous yoga class with demanding strength postures that will have you moving, breathing and sweating! True to its name, a C2 class focuses on building and engaging your core strength to support you in more advanced postures. Set to energizing music in a heated, climate-controlled room, CorePower Yoga 2 strengthens, balances, detoxifies and exhilarates the body and mind. "This class torches calories" – Shape Magazine"

Tiffany taught the class.  Right off the bat she said, "This hour is for you."  That came full circle near the end of class with her statement, "You gave yourself this gift."

Being a meteorologist, journalist, writer, and blogger I like story-telling with a beginning, middle, and end so these two simple lines or thoughts resonated so much with me.  I often look at my workouts as something I do for myself, a priority for my sanity, and a chance to check out for an hour.  Guess I'd never really thought of it as a gift to myself, but during the class it became so obvious to me that yes it is a gift to me.  Flowing through the postures and movements, I realized I gave myself the gift to sweat, detox, stretch out muscles, better align myself, re-center physically and emotionally.  I also realized later that I gave the gift of fitness, health and well-being to my friend Heather, as she did to me today.  Both of us said if the other one would have bailed then we would have too.  So glad neither of us bailed.

Not long into the class, when we were holding a pose, Tiffany also shared with us that she moved this week.  Yesterday she was unpacking and pulled out a magnet that said something like, "What if your someday is now."  I couldn't get that out of my head for the rest of class.....what if...my someday is now.  Someday I'll meet Mr. Right, someday I'll travel around the world, someday I'll reach my goal to travel to all 50 states (7 to go), someday my Swept Away will be a huge success, someday I'll climb Kilimanjaro....someday, someday, someday.  Trust me I've got a lot of somedays.

There was one moment in the class, when we were in chair position with right arm wrapped under left, hands touching in front of face and right leg lifted up, over and wrapped around the left leg, that I saw in the mirror a steady drip of sweat falling from my right elbow.  Same thing happened with the left elbow when we switched to the other side.  Totally zoning out on those sweat droplets that looked like rain droplets (fitting for a gloomy foggy and misty Sunday morning), I realized my someday that is now is pretty darn good.  I see that in the moments captured in pictures and video and on live tv of laughter, smiles and happiness.  It's great to have dreams and goals, but I'm one lucky girl....who's doing her best to be a yogi-in-training in her someday that is now.

Hot Yoga

Yesterday I took Hot Yoga.  Core Power Yoga offers a free week and I wanted to get in at least one more class during my first week.  I used to do Bikram Yoga on a regular basis but hadn't done it in at least 2 years.  So I was pretty excited about the Hot Yoga class.  It's a 60 minute class in a room heated to 105 degrees.  My instructor, Mary Beth, is very slim and fit.  I loved her calming tone of voice and that she corrected me with my hand positions.  I was separating my thumbs and fingers on a foot hold and she said I should keep thumbs with fingers.  It made the position a little tougher but it's suppose to be better for stability.  I'm a newbie yogi so definitely want the instruction and correction if I'm doing something wrong.

In the class we did a series of 26 postures.  I really liked how the class flowed from position to position.  I was a full out sweaty mess.  It's a different kind of sweat than sweating from cardio like running or biking.    You truly feel like you are sweating out toxins and opening yourself to a restored, renewed you.